The parents of a New Jersey high-school senior who died mysteriously last month on a school trip to West Africa believe their daughter was murdered and charge that officials are part of a coverup.

Phylicia Moore, 18, a Teaneck HS honors student, went to Ghana on a goodwill mission to donate books to an orphanage and assist children suffering from AIDS with 23 other students and nine chaperones.

She was last seen alive at around 10:30 p.m. on April 15, when she left her chair at a hotel swimming pool in Accra, Ghana, to go to her bedroom, said the family’s attorney, Nancy Lucianna. Almost 11 hours later, Moore’s clothed body was found “partially submerged,” Lucianna said.

The teen’s grief-stricken parents, Douglass and Lola Moore, are hoping to turn their agony into action, asking FBI officials in Newark to interview the 23 students and chaperones on the trip.

“Someone murdered her and made it look like a drowning,” said Douglass Moore, a veteran Con Edison employee. “The chaperones didn’t do a bed check. They didn’t knock on doors.”

Moore said his family has hired an independent pathologist who determined that his daughter’s body had been placed in the water a short time before she was found.

A State Department official said Ghanaian officials haven’t suggested foul play, but said they haven’t completed toxicology testing.